I'm so bored today and so I just browsed around on Ebay, looking at piano-related things. There are so many goofy things that people sell! Here is one - you know those little coffee/tea creamers that you find on tables in restaurants? Well, here is just the top of one - the foil little piece that you pull off. It's got Chopin's picture on it.

_________________"Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties." ~ Frederic Chopin

Interesting... Next time I'm at a cafe, I'll ask for some smetana for my coffee.

Smetana is not cream: it is SOUR cream and sour cream only. Having first seen the word in Russian, it was only later I realised it seems to exist in all Slavic languages as well as in Romanian. If anyone saw you take that picture they must have thought you were off your bean.

Though ti be called "Mr. Cream" is not that bad, I am happy I have a surname that has no meaning!

Here is some cream to you too! the "c" stands for "s" and the "H" for am "n"

PS. As I was ataching this all the house shook: we have just had an earthquake!

_________________Richard Willmer"Please do not shoot the pianistHe is doing his best."Oscar Wilde: Impressions of America: Leadville

PS. As I was ataching this all the house shook: we have just had an earthquake!

I missed that bit it seems. Any damage done ?We have regular "earthquakes" in some parts of the northern province of Holland, due to underground gas exploitation. Not a big deal so far, and nothing like the real stuff of course.

PS. As I was ataching this all the house shook: we have just had an earthquake!

I missed that bit it seems. Any damage done ?We have regular "earthquakes" in some parts of the northern province of Holland, due to underground gas exploitation. Not a big deal so far, and nothing like the real stuff of course.

Thank you, all is fine!

At the epicentre it was over 5. Unfortunately, for the journalists, nothing has happened and they are having to spin tales about "the panic". This must have been the fourth one I have been though. The one that wrecked Assisi woke me up in the middle of the night, though the one at Aquila did not travel so far.

When my brother used to live in Santa Cruz, Ca, he used to say the same things.

_________________Richard Willmer"Please do not shoot the pianistHe is doing his best."Oscar Wilde: Impressions of America: Leadville

Had I discovered a few months earlier what smetana means, I would have been tempted to comment on the four-hand piano transcriptions from Ma Vlast which Chris and Andreas recorded recently, how well they brought out the creamy textures in the music.

By the way, I find myself a little confused about how the composer's name should be pronounced. I had only ever heard it stressed on the first syllable, SME-ta-na. I know one has to be careful about what to believe when looking things up on wikipedia, but they seem to be contradicting themselves. Look him up there, and the first thing indicated in his entry is the pronunciation of his name. It is given both in written phonetic form (IPA) and as a short voice recording of two people speaking it, who are tacitly implied to be native speakers.

The written version confirms stress is on the first syllable, and moreover a note in the page describing the Czech/Slovak-specific variant of IPA states that in these languages stress is always on the first syllable. But the recording clearly sounds like they are stressing the middle syllable, Sme-TA-na. What's going on

Had I discovered a few months earlier what smetana means, I would have been tempted to comment on the four-hand piano transcriptions from Ma Vlast which Chris and Andreas recorded recently, how well they brought out the creamy textures in the music.

By the way, I find myself a little confused about how the composer's name should be pronounced. I had only ever heard it stressed on the first syllable, SME-ta-na. I know one has to be careful about what to believe when looking things up on wikipedia, but they seem to be contradicting themselves. Look him up there, and the first thing indicated in his entry is the pronunciation of his name. It is given both in written phonetic form (IPA) and as a short voice recording of two people speaking it, who are tacitly implied to be native speakers.

The written version confirms stress is on the first syllable, and moreover a note in the page describing the Czech/Slovak-specific variant of IPA states that in these languages stress is always on the first syllable. But the recording clearly sounds like they are stressing the middle syllable, Sme-TA-na. What's going on

One word, different languages. In Czech (and possibly in Polish and other languages) it is SMEtana, but in Russian it is smeTAna.

Now, look at Janacek, whose name is not JAnacek, but JaNAcek, as I was taught by a Czech gril I met once and who knew all there was to know about classical music. She confimed me the stress rule, as you mention, but said that was how his name was pronounced, But then he was not Czech, but Moravian and he was a Slovak speaker.

_________________Richard Willmer"Please do not shoot the pianistHe is doing his best."Oscar Wilde: Impressions of America: Leadville

you know those little coffee/tea creamers that you find on tables in restaurants? Well, here is just the top of one - the foil little piece that you pull off. It's got Chopin's picture on it.

Well isn't that an interesting doohickey?!

I think the only people who could solve that Chopin Jigsaw puzzle are people who know the piece and can sightsing, to know which chord goes where in the score or else you could put it together by the piano and play the chords one by one..

_________________"I don't know what music is, but I know it when I hear it." - Alan SchuylerRiley Tucker

I think the only people who could solve that Chopin Jigsaw puzzle are people who know the piece and can sightsing, to know which chord goes where in the score or else you could put it together by the piano and play the chords one by one..

You could also sort of compose a new piece. That might be fun...

_________________"Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties." ~ Frederic Chopin

I think the only people who could solve that Chopin Jigsaw puzzle are people who know the piece and can sightsing, to know which chord goes where in the score or else you could put it together by the piano and play the chords one by one..

I think the only people who could solve that Chopin Jigsaw puzzle are people who know the piece and can sightsing, to know which chord goes where in the score or else you could put it together by the piano and play the chords one by one..

You could also sort of compose a new piece. That might be fun...

Like

What?

_________________"Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties." ~ Frederic Chopin

Aleatoric means random and is derived from the Latin for dice. The idea here of course is that the puzzle pieces would just be just stuck together at random from a mixed pile. Chances are this isn't actually possible because the edges are likely to be cut so that the shape of every piece is different and they will only fit together one way. Though it would be pretty cool if the pieces were designed to be of identical shape and contained one bar or so of music each.

But did you know that Mozart wrote some literally aleatoric music? This was posthumously published in 1773 by Hummel and republished in 1798 by Simrock. I have a 1976 facsimile reprint of this 2nd edition. It is a recipe for "composing" simple waltzes without needing to have the slightest knowledge of harmony or composition and is almost like a game. It requires two dice.

The aim is to generate an 8-bar minuet-like piece plus an 8-bar trio section. What Mozart did was to write 11 different versions of each of the 16 bars required, each version of one bar is a good fit with all versions of its neighbours. So he wrote 176 bars and gave each bar an ID number. Then he compiled two tables, one for the menuet and one for the trio, labelling the columns A to H in each case (to represent the 8 bars of the section). The rows were numbered 2 to 12, representing the 11 possible sums you can get by throwing two dice.

So you throw the dice. Say you get 3 and 5, which makes 8. So you look up row 8 and column A to find an ID number. So for the first bar of your "customised" waltz, you just copy out the bar which has that number. Repeat the process for each of the other 15 bars and there's your finished product.

It is easy to see that the number of different waltzes that you can "compose" this way is huge. There are over 214 million different minuets and the same number of trios, hence almost 46 quadrillion different complete pieces, or there would be if each bar's 11 versions really were all different, which is not quite the case. But there is still a plenty of variety.

There are over 214 million different minuets and the same number of trios, hence almost 46 quadrillion different complete pieces, or there would be if each bar's 11 versions really were all different, which is not quite the case. But there is still a plenty of variety.

Yes, but would even a fraction of these "varieties" sound passable?! Sometimes I find myself slaving over just one little note in a chord for a long time. Or when I revisit a piece I just have to fix this or that. And I am by no means rolling a dice, I have an image in my head of how a piece will sound. I think Aleotoric "chance" music is interesting but when you compare a mathematically, (though with some variables left to chance) composed piece to a theme in variations, unless the math is very complex, the piece will just sound comical, or annoying, however you look at it.. whereas the t and v will sound spirited, the human element, more appealing given that the composer understands harmony and has just the right amount of "classical restraint"

_________________"I don't know what music is, but I know it when I hear it." - Alan SchuylerRiley Tucker

Yes. I'm convinced they will all sound "passable" in the context for which they were designed. They would all work as practical music to which to waltz, without the music seeming weird to the dancers. That doesn't mean they would all be particularly great pieces of music. I think Mozart will just have been having a bit of fun, demonstrating how easily and formulaically waltzes can be written. The harmony tends to follow a fairly fixed pattern, and within that framework you can modify each bar in several ways without changing its harmony. That helps to ensure that independently varied neighbouring bars will still "fit".

Aleatoric means random and is derived from the Latin for dice. The idea here of course is that the puzzle pieces would just be just stuck together at random from a mixed pile. Chances are this isn't actually possible because the edges are likely to be cut so that the shape of every piece is different and they will only fit together one way. Though it would be pretty cool if the pieces were designed to be of identical shape and contained one bar or so of music each.

But did you know that Mozart wrote some literally aleatoric music? This was posthumously published in 1773 by Hummel and republished in 1798 by Simrock. I have a 1976 facsimile reprint of this 2nd edition. It is a recipe for "composing" simple waltzes without needing to have the slightest knowledge of harmony or composition and is almost like a game. It requires two dice.

The aim is to generate an 8-bar minuet-like piece plus an 8-bar trio section. What Mozart did was to write 11 different versions of each of the 16 bars required, each version of one bar is a good fit with all versions of its neighbours. So he wrote 176 bars and gave each bar an ID number. Then he compiled two tables, one for the menuet and one for the trio, labelling the columns A to H in each case (to represent the 8 bars of the section). The rows were numbered 2 to 12, representing the 11 possible sums you can get by throwing two dice.

So you throw the dice. Say you get 3 and 5, which makes 8. So you look up row 8 and column A to find an ID number. So for the first bar of your "customised" waltz, you just copy out the bar which has that number. Repeat the process for each of the other 15 bars and there's your finished product.

It is easy to see that the number of different waltzes that you can "compose" this way is huge. There are over 214 million different minuets and the same number of trios, hence almost 46 quadrillion different complete pieces, or there would be if each bar's 11 versions really were all different, which is not quite the case. But there is still a plenty of variety.

I would call what is done by the dice thrower here as aleatoric "construction," not composing, for Mozart has already considered all the harmonic structure and determined and limited (delimited) the set of possible. However, having made this nit-pick, I never new this and do find it interesting. How is this writing titled or referrenced? Does it have a place in the catalogues?

_________________Eddy M. del Rio, MD"A smattering will not do. They must know all the keys, major and minor, and they must literally 'know them backwards.'" - Josef Lhevinne

I would call what is done by the dice thrower here as aleatoric "construction," not composing, for Mozart has already considered all the harmonic structure and determined and limited (delimited) the set of possible.

Quite so. The real composing has already been done by Mozart. I used quote marks around "composing" because the word appears in the title.

Quote:

However, having made this nit-pick, I never new this and do find it interesting. How is this writing titled or referrenced? Does it have a place in the catalogues?

It is (somewhat ramblingly) titled "ANLEITUNG Walzer oder Schleifer mit 2 Würflen zu componieren, so viele man will, ohne etwas von der Musik oder Composition zu verstehen."or "INSTRUCTION To compose without the least knowledge of Music so much German Walzer or Schleifer as one pleases, by throwing a certain Number with two Dice."

Yes. I'm convinced they will all sound "passable" in the context for which they were designed. They would all work as practical music to which to waltz, without the music seeming weird to the dancers. That doesn't mean they would all be particularly great pieces of music. I think Mozart will just have been having a bit of fun, demonstrating how easily and formulaically waltzes can be written. The harmony tends to follow a fairly fixed pattern, and within that framework you can modify each bar in several ways without changing its harmony. That helps to ensure that independently varied neighbouring bars will still "fit".

Would be interesting to have a composer use this method to write a waltz, to some extent all composition is based on certain templates. But when I say "to some extent" I don't mean the new stuff. The old stuff!

Quote:

Not likely to happen. Perhaps we should all hop over to Facebook, as many of out (former) members have already done. I'm starting to feel like forums are outdated.

I think its nice to have a place to just talk about piano, with pianists and though some have gone to facebook, I wonder if it will go out of fashion in the near future, as it was with myspace. Now it is little more than a free place for musicians to flaunt there tour dates and recordings demos. And it use to be just like facebook...

_________________"I don't know what music is, but I know it when I hear it." - Alan SchuylerRiley Tucker

I think its nice to have a place to just talk about piano, with pianists and though some have gone to facebook, I wonder if it will go out of fashion in the near future, as it was with myspace. Now it is little more than a free place for musicians to flaunt there tour dates and recordings demos. And it use to be just like facebook...

Yes that much is true. I must admit FB confuses me still (getting old, hehe) and a good old-fashioned forum has something comforting.

It's some sort of photograph altered in way that it becomes art. Very weird! I don't even know what to say about it. I do wonder if the artist thought about placing Chopin's hand down just a little....

_________________"Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties." ~ Frederic Chopin

You don't like overly sentimental things... I think I remember you saying that on some thread. Sorry, I forgot..

Quote:

you made me wonder what a hear-shaped piano would look like, so I just made one...

Thanks! Cool.

The piano on the right... I've never seen a piano that faces that direction! It reminds me of an apple watch that had the hands moving counterclockwise instead of clockwise. On it read, "think different."

Quote:

Very imaginative, but it looks more like a pair of underpants!

Yes, a pair of breifs to be sure

_________________"I don't know what music is, but I know it when I hear it." - Alan SchuylerRiley Tucker

Found this on Ebay by another company, but this link works better. It's for CD's that teach you to play piano better using subliminal messages. Pretty ridiculous, isn't it? Or is it? Anyone ever try anything like this before? I'm game....maybe....What harm could it do?

Found this on Ebay by another company, but this link works better. It's for CD's that teach you to play piano better using subliminal messages. Pretty ridiculous, isn't it? Or is it? Anyone ever try anything like this before? I'm game....maybe....What harm could it do?

Interesting concept. But to what extent can hypnosis help one... learn an instrument. Practice is proven, but hypnosis?! Hypnosis is an interesting topic. The imperius spell was an unforgivable curse in Harry Potter and could allow one wizard to hypnotize the other and make him or her do anything. But that's in a magical world created by J.K Rowling...

It would be interesting to try the CD out, but to answer your question, what harm could it do? You might waste $15.97 Then again, I haven't tried it. I doubt it would cause any health problems, I don't know.

EDIT: also there doesn't seem to be anything different from the learn piano page to the learn guitar page or the violin page..

but piano is a totally different instrument than either the violin or guitar? I don't get it? I guess once your hypnotized into playing one instrument you will be able to play all of them!

_________________"I don't know what music is, but I know it when I hear it." - Alan SchuylerRiley Tucker

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